The chopper swerved. Arnold, close to the trees, tried to gain altitude, but Remo had changed his tactics. He was jumping from one side of the tail section to the other, landing in crazy angles that made the rudder veer wildly.
The helicopter dipped. From time to time Remo caught a glimpse of Arnold's frantic face. He was trying to watch Remo, the controls, and the view in front of him at the same time. His shoulders worked. He was obviously reloading his gun.
When he'd finished, he aimed out the cockpit window, but it was easy for Remo to lose the bullet from his position on the tail. He jumped to the other side, sending the helicopter into a sharp curve. The bullet hit the rudder.
The chopper dived. The engine sputtered. A stall. Inside the cockpit, Arnold hammered at the controls, but the trees kept coming closer, closer. If it crashed headfirst, the engine would catch fire, Remo knew, and with it would go his only chance to get out of Peruvina before daybreak.
He waited. Then, just before the moment of impact, Remo leapt into the air, turned a fast double somersault to gain the weight and momentum he needed, and landed square on the tail's center.
The helicopter landed flat in the trees, without an explosion.
Arnold's arm extended out from the window, the gun in his hand firing in every direction.
"Forget it, kid," Remo said, snatching the weapon away from him through the open window.
Arnold stared at him. Remo was standing erect, balanced on the tops of the trees. Although he had used enough weight to move a helicopter, Remo now seemed to be weightless. Not a branch cracked beneath his feet. Not a leaf moved.
"She was right," Arnold murmured from inside the cockpit. "You are something special."
"She's dead," Remo said. "Now get out of there."
"You're together, aren't you?" Arnold whispered dazedly. "You and the man named Smith."
Remo felt the blood drain from his face. "What do you know about Smith?"
"She was right. There is some kind of secret government organization. Smith runs it, and an old Oriental's got something to do with it, too." He spoke as if to himself, smiling strangely. "I really didn't believe her at first. It all sounded so bizarre. But she was right. I should have known. She's always right."
"Get out of there," Remo said hoarsely.
"Oh, I know you've got to kill me now. But you won't." Slowly he reached into his pocket. Out came an ordinary penknife.
"What, no lasers, no jet-propelled gadgets?" Remo said.
Arnold sat still in the pilot's seat, shifting the knife from one hand to the other. His cocky confidence, his urban veneer, had vanished. In his oversized helmet and glasses, Arnold looked more like a kid than ever. A rotten kid, Remo reminded himself.
"She said you'd make me talk if you caught me," Arnold said in a small voice.
"That's right," Remo affirmed. "Now just come out of there. I'll see that you make it to the ground in one piece."
But Arnold only stared, his eyes fixed and blank. "She said..." He trailed off. Then, with a broad, quick motion, he thrust the knife to his left side, plunged it into his own neck, and drew it across his throat.
Aghast, Remo ripped open the door. Blood was gushing out of Arnold's neck in bubbling red fountains. The cut had been so deep that the inner workings of his throat were exposed. Arnold's eyes rolled back.
The helicopter broke a branch and settled more deeply in the trees. Arnold's body, its head dangling behind it, swung around and toppled out the door. It bounced and tumbled through the trees like a rag doll, catching on broken pieces of wood, painting the leaves it touched with a coating of bright red, its bones cracking loudly in the stillness.
His clothing stuck on a long, sharp branch. Arnold's body hung suspended like a carcass in a slaughterhouse, his head attached only by bloody strings. Finally, the head alone reached the ground, its glazed eyes staring sightlessly upward.
?Chapter Sixteen
Smith watched the blank video printout screen as the computers whirred, sorting out information, seeking to locate one telephone out of millions.
The connection had been fast and short. After Remo's message, there was a strange, loud noise on the Peruvina end. Smith worked with a speed he didn't know he possessed to program the Folcroft computers to the correct mode for intercepting the transmission.
"This had better work," he muttered. The call from Remo had further jeopardized CURE's vulnerability, if that was possible at this point. If whoever had stolen Smith's attaché case were listening in at the time of the transmission, that person now knew that Remo and Smith were still alive. He would also know that CURE was capable of tracing international calls on command.
The call was picked up on the first ring by a growly, sleepy male voice.
"What now?" it said.
The connection was crackling. Remo had said that the circuits were burning, whatever that meant. It was clear to Smith, listening in on the intercepting phone, that the Peruvina end was shorting out fast.
"What's the matter? There's nothing but noise on this line."
"Er..." Smith tried to stall for time, in case the poor connection delayed the intercept function on the computers. "This is a lineman," he improvised, holding a handkerchief over the mouthpiece so that his words, coming from within the United States, would not sound unnaturally clear in the connection from Peruvina. "Several of the telephones in your area have been malfunctioning, and—"
The connection was broken in a sea of static.
"The wires in Peruvina must have burned through," Smith said to Chiun while he busied himself at the computer controls. "There's been some kind of fire in Peruvina. I hope the computers were able to trace the call. Otherwise, I'll have no choice..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
They waited. The computers sorted and sifted, clicked and hummed. At last three lines of green lettering appeared on the screen.
DONNELLY, HUGO
322 W. LINDEN DRIVE
WASH., D.C. (RES.)
Smith blinked as the words appeared, unable for a moment to believe the information. Then his forehead smoothed, and he exhaled in relief.
"How stupid of me," he said, keying in his next question. There had to be more than one Hugo Donnelly in Washington. He had simply assumed, foolishly, from the name that the man connected with the heroin-laced coffee from Peruvina was the same man who held an official position with the government of the United States.
"EXPAND HUGO DONNELLY," he asked the computers. They answered instantly:
DONNELLY, HUGO, B. 1927, PORTLAND, ORE.
MARRIED, ARLENE NASH PALMER
(DECEASED)
1931–1957... ESMERALDA VALASQUEZ
DONNELLY, B. 1950, CURRENT RESIDENCE
PERUVINA, COLOMBIA... CHILDREN, 1
(MALE)
ARNOLD LANCE DONNELLY, B. 1961...
EMPLOYED, U.S. GOVERNMENT, ASST. TO
UNDERSEC. OF INTERIOR...
Smith felt himself trembling. He remembered a name that Remo had given him, the name of the man who had given the Peruvinian coffee beans to the Miami warehouse.
"CONNECTION, DONNELLY, HUGO, WITH
BROWN, GEORGE, SAXONBURG, INDIANA,
OR NORTH AMERICAN COFFEE COMPANY."
DOES NOT COMPUTE.
?Chapter Seventeen
Remo lowered himself out of the trees gingerly, taking care not to use his injured hand except to extricate-Arnold's headless corpse from the tangle of branches that suspended it.
Well, it was all over now. He should at least have gotten to know the name of his father. But maybe Smith had taken care of that end. He'd find out when he got back. Still, he hated to close a case without being sure. The last thing Remo would have suspected Arnold of doing was committing suicide.
Wrapping his hand with a strip of cloth torn from Arnold's shirt, he dragged the two parts of the body further into the trees. The kid had looked so scared at the end. Kept mentioning the woman, as if he were afraid that Esmeralda would somehow rise from the dead. There must have been more of an attachment between Arnold and his stepmother than either of them let on. He'd never know now.